It seems to me that Rajan was specifically appointed to manage monetary policy for the country, and was not appointed to make politically partisan statements, especially when certain political parties are trying to market themselves as epitomizing "tolerance" while opportunistically branding other parties as epitomizing "intolerance". A politically partisan RBI governor has no place holding that office, and needs to be replaced if he continues to echo partisan political rhetoric.

What if US Federal Reserve Chief Janet Yellen started deliberately weighing in on the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, or on a Second Amendment issue like Gun Control? Given the politically partisan nature of certain debates, I think it's very dangerous for an unelected civil servant like a reserve bank chief to be casually dabbling in certain issues which are of a highly charged politically partisan nature. It shows a certain level of irresponsibility and unprofessionalism when appointed officials go beyond their brief to pitch their opinions on politically charged topics to the press. A reserve bank chief's statements are always heavily followed by the press - that's the nature of that job - to the point where analysts will literally try to parse meaning out of every word and utterance. A reserve bank chief is appointed to manage monetary policy, and not to opportunistically use their appointed position as a podium or platform for their own personal views on other policies which are beyond the jurisdiction or scope of their appointment.

It may be recalled that there was the case of a US army general in Afghanistan who publicly questioned President Obama's wisdom on a certain policy, and he was immediately called in by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who appropriately told him to tender his resignation. Whether it's a general appointed to manage a war, or a reserve bank chief appointed to manage a monetary situation, the appointee needs to respect the chain of command and the fact that he is not an elected public representative, unlike those who appointed him. When appointees begin making politically partisan comments, they should be reminded that they were not appointed to exercise their own personal freedom of speech - if they want to exercise their personal freedom of speech, then they can step down from their position and do this outside of public office, on their own time.

We already have a rogue judiciary showing open contempt for parliament. We don't need an unelected appointee to a non-constitutional post like an RBI chief giving lecturing sermons on politically partisan issues. Furthermore, we have a key election going on in Bihar right now, that could be pivotal in influencing the course of the country's policy for the near to medium term. Should Raghuram Rajan really be looking to make statements which could be used to influence the outcome of that election? Is that really appropriate for a person in his role position? Even if the Modi govt doesn't take him to task for his statements - just as it hasn't taken the Supreme Court to task for its recent decision against the amendment passed by parliament - then at least the BJP's various allies in the media must be vocal in taking Rajan to task for his conspicuously-timed remarks, and in demanding clarification from him.

Where was Raghuram Rajan in 1984, when the Left-wing Congress partymen led pogroms that saw over 10,000 Sikhs massacred across India (3000 in Delhi alone)? Where were the press conferences and award-returners, and the Moody's analysts then? It's only when the 70-year-old entrenched Congress kleptocracy starts screaming "fascism" that all the Quixotes suddenly come running to aim their lances at the "Hindoo fascists".

This could radically improve the ability of small startups to gain access to vital capital needed to get them off the ground. Since India is also looking to market its small startups to international investors, perhaps it too needs to think along these lines.

Yes, I agree that the Dadri lynching was a very bad thing, but if a Moody's report is to be then issuing its own characterizations of who is to blame, etc is then begging the question as to whether the report's author Sydney-based economist Faraz Syed, might not be inserting his own ethnic views into a report that is being palmed off as Moody's views.

Retooling India's infrastructure is one of Modi's biggest social goals and achieving that goal will require embracing an engineering mindset. The challenges associated with the rebuilding of Varanasi and other Indian heritage cities, for example, have been talked about for decades. Engineering is to a society's physical structure what blood is to the body. It provides vitality, immunity, and nutrition to the society's vasculature. The engineering approach doesn't have solutions to all the social issues, but it does for many. And if done well, it will make it easier to tackle other challenges.

Certainly, we can all just fault various media mercenaries for playing up his comments - but why is he making them in the first place? Does he understand what it means to belong to a party, and how to speak? He's acting like he's a member of a different party. I think we need to look a little more at how other conservative parties around the world are run, and examine their culture of party discipline, which we seem to be lacking.

This is the kind of can-do attitude that India needs more of - and it shouldn't just have to come from Modi. State govts themselves need to show this type of proactive mentality and ethic. I don't think we ever saw anything approaching this happening from previous govts.

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Another fd from Meera this time what appeared in NYT. She lived in the U.S. for 20 odd years now in India.

From:

Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2015 12:21 AM

To:

Subject: One rule for them, and another for us?

Do you remember Kristoff's article this October in the New York Times, mockingly linking India's poverty, malnourishment and poor health with "its vegetarianism, particularly its reluctance to consume beef"? Well, well, well...! We now have a well written opinion in the New York Times, based on an evaluation by over 20 leading scientists on more than 800 peer reviewed research papers, published in leading health journals, clearly linking cancer to too much red meat (which includes beef) and processed meat (which also includes a lot of beef),

The proverbial Martian who happened to show up in India would be startled by the pretzel logic of the mainstream media’s obsessions with various events. Memes appear, thrive, die; and some, surprisingly, persist for longer than they normally would. There doesn’t seem to be any logic behind it. Or, on second thoughts, is there?

Every meme, every MSM editorial today, I suggest, is oriented towards just one theme: Bihar elections. The “paid media has in essence drawn a line in the sand, a lakshmanarekha. That is, they will not, they must not, let the BJP carry the populous state. The reasons are not hard to fathom: if they lose Bihar, it becomes difficult for the Congress to thwart all NDA reform (eg”, GST) by obstructing it in the Rajya Sabha, as they have done so successfully so far.

Narendra Modi. PTI

There is deeper strategy behind the Congress’ cussedness: it is not only that they wish to deny PM Narendra Modi the means to deliver his development mantra, they wish to use this failure as the lever to rout him in 2019. No, they have not given up on the possibility of their roaring back to power in the next general election, and the western #deepstate allies of the Congress haven’t, either. For them, it is total war, as one its mouthpieces admitted. The Economist magazine says that “politicians reach for every available weapon” (‘The battle for Bihar’, 17 October).

When politics becomes corrupted, it can still be reformed. However, it's sad but true that, when intellectuals get corrupt, it's a point of no-return

The other day, when noted lyricist Gulzar spoke in favour of the award-returning fiasco, the only thought that came to my mind were his lines: "Tujhse naaraz nahi zindagi, hairaan hoon main...Pareshan hoon main...". This because, when a personality like Gulzar saheb voices about an issue that is totally contrary to your seed of belief, you tend to wonder whether you are right or wrong. You wonder whether your conscience, your voice is wrongly placed. But then, I realised that if his voice is in favour of the writers, who are bent on creating a false sense of anarchical atmosphere in the country, then where was his voice when the greatest and immortal poetry and literature of Kashmir were up in flames?

Colleges, schools and libraries were being burnt. There was a mass genocide of the intelligentsia of Kashmiri Pandits from the valley. Forget about the freedom of speech; tongues were chopped off if you even dared to speak. When the voices were throttled and lives slaughtered, the so-called Akademic clan was missing from action. Maybe, if they had created a noise then, there would be some voice of the Kashmiri Pandits left in the valley today.

The killing of noted writer MM Kalburgi has been termed as some kind of a Right-wing conspiracy. But what surprises me is that, when the country was hit by incidents like the 26/11 Mumbai attacks or the Mumbai bomb blasts in 2008 and 1993, all of which were perpretrated by Muslim terrorists, no one stood to call it Islamic terrorism. Then, all we got to hear was that terrorism has no religion, no colour. It is a dastardly act of inhumanity. But the moment the act is committed by a Hindu, it immediately takes the shape and colour of religion and sect.

Last month, Iranian film director Majid Majidi had come to India to promote his film on Prophet Mohammad, and AR Rahman scored the music for the same. Both these gentlemen are known devout Muslims, but an entire clan of maulvis and self-proclaimed soldiers of Islam stood up and gagged Mr Majidi and Mr Rahman. Where was this clan of agitators then? One never heard a quiver of protest from any corner. Now, just imagine, instead of amaulvi, if a swami or a maharaj had done the denouncement, protests would have become unstoppable.

or should we be looking at leapfrog by supporting the infra for self-driving cars of whatever power train, so that we up front reduce the number of cars bought by individuals? already ola and uber are making personal cars somewhat redundant at least in bangalore.

Asia's two autos powerhouses, Japan and China, are jostling for supremacy in how future electric cars should generate their power – from batteries or hydrogen-powered fuel-cells.

In a potentially high-stakes clash reminiscent of Sony versus Panasonic in the Beta-VHS video war in the 1980s, the winner could enjoy years of domination if their technology is adopted as a global standard by other manufacturers.

This time, though, there should be a place in the autos market for both electric battery and hydrogen fuel-cell cars. The key question is which will power more mainstream cars – the market dominated today by the likes of Toyota, General Motors and Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE).

"We're reaching a crossroads," says James Chao, Shanghai-based Asia-Pacific managing director for industry consultant IHS Automotive. "It's difficult to exaggerate the significance of the choice between batteries and hydrogen.

"Billions of dollars will be invested in one or the other and may determine which companies will lead the industry through the end of this century."

The Freemont and San Jose gurudwaras display photos of Bhindrawale prominently.

Freemont has pictures of Martyrs on wall of the entire langar hall.
At entrance a banner showed 29th April 1986 as ‘Khalistan Liberation
Day’. A sign said gurudwara’Dedicated in the memory of the Martyrs of
Khalistan’.

When Sikhism was spoken about, there was no reference to its origin and
close association with Sanatana Dharma. That is when I remembered
Khushwant Singh’s writings, “The Adi Granth echoes the Vedanta
through most of its nearly 6,000 hymns. There is a new breed of Sikh
scholars who bend backwards to prove Sikhism has taken little or nothing
from Hinduism. All they need to be told is that of the 15,028 names of
God that appear in the Adi Granth, Hari occurs over 8,000 times, Ram
2,533 times.”

“There is no doubt in practice Muslim women are discriminated against. The legislature has done nothing to end it. The SC must take cognizance of such discrimination and do something for them”

While the court's actions against Muslim Personal Law would be helpful for India, the court's sudden motivations for doing may not be out of concern for public interest, but rather out of its own parochial political interests, after having autocratically opposed the will of the Indian parliament and public on the matter of Supreme Court judge appointments. India's Supreme Court justices are increasingly exposing themselves as the unelected politicians they in fact are.

Pakistani Hindus, who have arrived in the Indian capital in recent months, tell BBC Hindi's Zubair Ahmed that they fled their homes to escape discrimination and religious persecution.

Mala Das can just about write her name. At 16, this has been her greatest achievement. "When I came here I was completely unlettered. Today I can write my name," she says.

But Mala is still unsure about numbers - when asked about the year she came to India, she draws a blank.

Her family and neighbours say they arrived in 2011 from the Pakistani city of Hyderabad to escape "religious and cultural persecution and government apathy".

About 1,200 people, who have migrated from Pakistan in the past five years, are housed in three camps in Delhi and many say one of the biggest problems they faced back home was that they were unable to educate their children.

Bhagwan Das, who was among a group of 71 people who reached Delhi three weeks ago, has two growing children with no formal education. He says they were treated like "second-class citizens" in Pakistan.

"Our children don't feel welcome in schools there. Muslims taunt us for being Hindu. Our girls are also sexually harassed," Mr Das says.

There is a primary school in the migrant camp where children are taught how to read and write.

Rajwanti, 13, and other children in the camp allege that Hindu boys and girls are made to read the Quran (Muslim holy book) in Pakistani schools and that Muslim students laugh at their religious practices.

Mala says she is happy to see that Hindus in India can practice their religion openly. "Here Hindus pray without fear in temples and organise religious festivals outdoor. In Pakistan we prayed at home. If we went to temples, we avoided the gaze of our neighbours."

Ishwar Lal, 18, who came to Delhi five months ago, says he feels liberated in India. "We have full religious freedom here. We are free."

Moreover, he says, in India "everyone is respectful of each other's faith".

Pakistan was created in 1947 after being carved out of India's mainly Muslim areas. A huge exchange of population took place during the partition which was often bloody.

Today, Muslims constitute 14% of India's population, while in Pakistan, Hindus are said to be just over 2%.

There is no official estimate of the number of Pakistani Hindus living in India, but over the years, small groups have been crossing the border to reach Delhi or other northern states, such as Rajasthan and Haryana. Once in India, they apply for asylum and, eventually, citizenship.

Islamabad has repeatedly said its Hindu community is safe and reports of their leaving are exaggerated.

In a written reply to a BBC query, the Indian government has revealed that more than 1,400 Pakistanis have been given citizenship since 2011 and that an overwhelming majority of them are Hindus.

Those living in the Delhi camps, however, say they are yet to get Indian citizenship.

"We applied in 2011 but nothing has happened. The BJP government which claims to have sympathy for us is no different from other governments. We feel frustrated," says Arjun Das, who is regarded as the leader of Pakistani Hindus in Delhi camps.

Pahlaj, who arrived three weeks ago, says he is disappointed that "no Hindu leader or neighbour has visited us yet".

But most say they are happy to be in India where they feel "at home" and Pahlaj says most Pakistani Hindus want to leave their country.

"A small number has come to India. Millions of Pakistani Hindus are waiting for an opportunity to do the same."

From now onwards, a large section of the media in India could well be perceivedto be a little less independent or, for that matter trustworthy.

Pranjoy Guha Thakurta, 14 June 2014, EPW

As far as advertising revenue goes, magazines face a bleak future in India.

Chart below depicts the steep fall in advertising revenue of magazines in India over a decade.

Chart – 1

Looking at this scenario, it is natural that magazines will explore new ways to earn revenue.

In 2007, speaking at the Indian Magazine Congress, Suresh Selvaraj, vice-president, Outlook Group, and associate publisher, 'Marie Claire', spoke of green bucks – the revenue models for magazines and how these have evolved.

"Essentially, there are four of these," he began. These included the Circulation Revenue Model (the so-called 'ad free' magazines, which make up for that with high cover prices), the Ad Revenue Model (particularly profitable for B2B publications – essentially ad driven and content free of cost), the Content Selling Model (paid for content) and the Treaty Model (trading off unsold ad inventory and even editorial space for shares of fledgling companies, and thereby, increasing the valuation of the concerned company). "The last two models have been successfully adopted by The Times of India," Selvaraj observed.

The options defined in 2007 as sources of revenue are true even now for magazines.

But "TheEconomic and Political Weekly(EPW) a left-leaning weekly Indianmagazinepublished fromMumbaiby the Sameeksha Trust, a charitable trust" has a way of generating revenue which is not mentioned in the Suresh Selvaraj's list.

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

The BJP govt should make patriation of Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh back to India a higher priority. There's no reason not to do this -- there are no negatives and only positives. Ultimately, it could even help tilt the balance of future Indian elections in BJP's favour. Ram temples and cow protection won't change ground realities as much as repatriating Hindus to India would.

This is the creepiest advert I have ever seen. "Spirit of Dubai" is narrated by a tortured pre-teen voice and features lots of ugly Sheikhs, white people with crooked smiles, camel racing, and an especially psychotic looking Arab guy at 0:43.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- If you say you're unhappy in Dubai, the police may call to ask you why as part of a new survey.
The online poll, unveiled in recent days, comes as Dubai tries to break
into the top 10 rankings of world's happiest cities by 2021, an effort
in league with other lofty aspirations in this emirate, home to the
world's tallest building.

This part of the world does know a thing or two about happiness though. Men are most ecstatic just before blowing themselves up to smithereens.

New Delhi, Oct. 25: India and the US have quietly decided to sever Jawaharlal Nehru's name from new initiatives under one of the world's best-known public diplomacy projects, pressed by the Narendra Modi government just before the Prime Minister travelled to New York in September.

Scholarships for India under Washington's Fulbright programme were named the "Fulbright-Nehru" fellowships under a 2008 agreement after the then Manmohan Singh government decided to match America's bilateral contribution.

Nehru had in February 1950 inked a pact with then US ambassador here, Loy Henderson, that has since then allowed 17,000 students of the two nations to study in each other's universities. Former US senator James William Fulbright had piloted the initiative globally for Washington in 1946 as a vehicle for America's post World War II soft-power push.

But new scholarships initiated under the same 2008 financial-sharing agreement will now be called "Fulbright-India" fellowships instead - all other aspects of that agreement will continue -senior Indian and American officials told The Telegraph .

Foreign minister Sushma Swaraj and US secretary of state John Kerry decided on the first scholarship with the new name during the India-US Strategic Dialogue on September 23 in Washington. A "Fulbright-India climate change fellowship" was announced at the end of the meeting.

Buried deep in a statement, the name and its significance went unnoticed at the time amid the frenzy ahead of Modi's second visit to the US as Prime Minister.

The decision to remove Nehru's name from the India-US Fulbright programme comes weeks after the two countries chopped off - again without an announcement - the name of Modi's predecessor Manmohan Singh, and in the process, of President Barack Obama, from another diplomatic initiative.

The Obama-Singh 21st Century Knowledge Initiative, launched by the two leaders in 2009, will be known as the US-India 21st Century Knowledge Initiative, confirms the US-India Educational Foundation (USIEF) - which runs both this project and the Fulbright-India programme - on its website.

The changes in names of diplomatic initiatives undertaken by the previous government also come amid a growing debate on whether the Modi government is attempting to replace Nehru's domestic and foreign policy legacy with its own.

"They are trying to not only change names but to rewrite history by removing the icons of our freedom struggle and also of our modern development," Congress spokesperson Shakeel Ahmed said over the phone from Bihar. "It is unfortunate."

USIEF executive director Adam Grotsky and deputy director Diya Dutt did not respond to email questions from this newspaper on the process followed in deciding on the name changes. It is also unclear whether existing Fulbright scholarship initiatives for India will be renamed. The USIEF is chaired by foreign secretary S. Jaishankar and US ambassador to India Richard Verma.

Analysts said it was unlikely Washington would mind the changes too much, although it would have been uncomfortable for America, they added, to drop Obama's name from a pact when he is still in office for another year.

Naming bilateral diplomatic pacts after politicians is a dodgy proposition for democracies to start with, the analysts pointed out, precisely because of the problems such nomenclature can create if a very different dispensation comes to power in either of the countries.

"This government is clearly trying to leave its imprint on foreign policy," Chintamani Mahapatra, professor at the centre for Canadian, US and Latin American Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, said. "But the Congress did so too - by injecting Nehru into the pact in 2008."

But the decision to change names is also fraught with risk, Mahapatra added. "The problem here is that you're not removing names from all government or bilateral projects - and by picking one or two, you reinforce the perception that you're trying to target Nehru's legacy," he said.

From 1950 to 2008, the US - which provides 8,000 scholarships each year globally under the Fulbright project -was the sole funder for the initiative with India.

But in July 2008, the then foreign secretary, Shivshankar Menon, and the US ambassador in New Delhi at the time, David Mulford, inked a pact revising the bilateral Fulbright agreement to become "full partners" through equal funding.

"The number of scholarships and grants exchanged each year is expected to double," the US state department said in a statement after the revised agreement was signed in the capital's Hyderabad House. "Reflecting this new partnership, scholarships awarded under this program will be known as Fulbright-Nehru Scholarships." The US Education Foundation in India became the USIEF.

A year later, Singh, the then Prime Minister, and Obama declared from the lawns of the White House that they would launch a jointly funded initiative named after them to promote collaboration between research universities in India and the US.

But as this newspaper had reported last year, the Modi government did not want a reference to the Obama-Singh initiative in the Prime Minister's talks with the US President when he visited Washington in September 2014.

Processed meats - such as bacon, sausages and ham - do cause cancer, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Its report said 50g of processed meat a day - less than two slices of bacon - increased the chance of developing colorectal cancer by 18%.

Meanwhile, it said red meats were "probably carcinogenic" but there was limited evidence.

But the WHO said meat did also have health benefits.

Processed meat is meat that has been modified to increase its shelf-life or alter its taste - such as by smoking, curing or adding salt or preservatives.

It is these additions which could be increasing the risk of cancer. High temperature cooking, such as on a barbeque, can also create carcinogenic chemicals.

How bad?

The WHO has come to the conclusion on the advice of its International Agency for Research on Cancer, which assesses the best available scientific evidence.

It has now placed processed meat in the same category as plutonium, but also alcohol as they definitely do cause cancer.

However, that is not an indication of how much cancer they cause. It does not mean eating a bacon sandwich is as bad as smoking.

"For an individual, the risk of developing colorectal (bowel) cancer because of their consumption of processed meat remains small, but this risk increases with the amount of meat consumed," Dr Kurt Straif from the WHO said.

Estimates suggest 34,000 deaths from cancer every year could be down to diets high in processed meat.

Red meat does have nutritional value too and is a major source of iron, zinc and vitamin B12.

However, the WHO said there was limited evidence that 100g of red meat a day increased the risk of cancer by 18%.

The WHO said its findings were important for helping countries give balanced dietary advice.

Peter Singer is professor of bioethics at Princeton University and the author of Animal Liberation.

"You could say that if you kill a cow you're depriving it of the rest of its existence, which could also have been a happy, good existence, so why deprive it of that just because you want to eat some meat when you've got other healthy, nutritious, delicious things that you could also eat?

The bulls say India is the 'next China'. Odds are they are right, if not today then within a decade or so. But even if this proves to be right in terms of growth, India is a very different country than China on many fundamental dimensions, demography and democracy being key. But most importantly, China has been built on infrastructure, investment and manufacturing, while India has barely scratched the surface on all three.

India began its economic reform in the early 1990s, more than a decade after China. But in the past 25 years, China has turbocharged its economy while India has languished in relative terms. Why?

Chinese growth has been driven by some of the world's highest investment rates. This has, in turn, made possible an infrastructure revolution of new cities, high-speed rail lines, airports and ports and manufacturing muscle that is the envy of the world. China has also been the world's factory for 20 years. Its ability to quickly and efficiently move what it produces domestically and around the world has been a critical ingredient in its growth miracle.

Today, India lags far behind China on all three dimensions. India invests about 30% of its GDP, compared with about 50% in China. Manufacturing is about 20% of the Indian economy, compared to China's about 30%. China has arguably the best physical infrastructure outside the western world. India's looks more like the poor country that it still is.

But this is a real opportunity for India. Increase investment. Improve infrastructure. Grow economic output. This is a tried and true path to growth, and it is one India is poised to follow.

... deleted

Yet it seems that the private sector won't act until it is more confident about politics. Nowhere is India more different from China than in the world of politics. But this doesn't mean that India won't go on a growth charge the way China has. The raw material India has to work with is so rich. The challenge now is to catalyse it.

Allow Castration of Child Rapists: The court made these remarks while dismissing a petition by a British national accused of sexually abusing a 15-year-old boy from Tamil Nadu in 2011 after promising his family that he would take care of his education... The number of child abuse cases has increased from 58,224 in 2013 to 89,423 in 2014.

Lessons from Amaravati: How not to build a smart city: An expert committee headed by the late KC Sivaramakrishnan described the idea of setting up a single city as an outdated concept. The committee instead suggested that several new urban centres come up, including industrial and technology hubs. More than 40 per cent of the land is highly fertile agricultural land and ecologically fragile wetlands.